[July 09, 2014]BEIJING
(Reuters) - A Beijing court has ruled against Apple Inc
by upholding the validity of a patent held by a Chinese
company, clearing the way for the Chinese company to
continue its own case against Apple for infringing
intellectual property rights.

Apple had taken Shanghai-based Zhizhen Internet
Technology and China's State Intellectual Property Office to
court to seek a ruling that Zhizhen's patent rights to a speech
recognition technology were invalid.

But the Beijing First Intermediate Court on Tuesday decided in
Zhizhen's favor, the People's Daily state newspaper reported on
Wednesday.

After the verdict, Apple said it intended to take the case to
the Beijing Higher People's Court, according to the People's
Daily.

"Unfortunately, we were not aware of Zhizhen's patent before we
introduced Siri (speech recognition technology) and we do not
believe we are using this patent," said a Beijing-based Apple
spokeswoman in an emailed statement to Reuters.

"While a separate court considers this question, we remain open
to reasonable discussions with Zhizhen," the spokeswoman said.

Zhizhen declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Zhizhen sued the U.S. firm in 2012 for intellectual property
rights infringement, saying Apple's Siri used on devices
including the iPhone violated Zhizhen's own voice system
patents.